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Kristen Holland

Earlier this year, Muni's new light-rail vehicles (LRVs) started arriving and undergoing testing on city streets to go into revenue service by the end of this year. While testing has been ongoing for months, none of it has been in the subway system. That is about to change as underground services are set to close down on weeknights and weekends for a month so this crucial step of rigorous testing can take place.

The testing requires the Muni subway to close early on weeknights and over the weekends for four weeks. Testing will begin with the start of service on Saturday, July 22 (approximately 7 a.m.) and continue until the end of regular service on Sunday, Aug. 20 (approximately 1 a.m., Monday).

There will be no testing during Outside Lands, Aug. 11 to 13. Trains will operate on the surface portion of the lines with Muni bus shuttles running between Embarcadero Station and St. Francis Circle. The subway testing will be conducted between West Portal and Montgomery stations; Embarcadero Station will remain open for T Line customers.

Singh Balraj Rai, Byron Cobb and Leonard Oats show off their trophies at the 54th Cable Car Bell Ringing Contest.

This year, Byron Cobb took home top place in San Francisco's Cable Car Bell Ringing Contest — and what a show!

Yesterday's noon contest had great weather and a lot of help to make it a success. You may have caught some of the media coverage at KRON 4 or in The Chronicle. We are grateful for our entire team of judges, many of whom come year after year, who bring their fine-tuned listening skills to determine the best of the best. The amateur ringers use heart and humor to ring for their favorite charities. The music provided by our favorite local blues band, featuring Cable Car Division employees, Abel Sanchez & The Frisco Project — who know how to draw a crowd. Our super mistress of ceremonies, local comedienne Debi Durst, keeps the afternoon fun and humming along. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a show without the hard working, talented men and women of San Francisco's Cable Cars.

More than 15 years ago, Muni became a national pioneer in providing customers real-time transit information when it launched NextMuni, the system that displays live arrival prediction times at transit shelters, online, through MuniMobile and third-party smartphone apps. Today, the system has become integral to how many Muni riders navigate the city.

Now, we want your input to help design Muni's next-generation customer information system. We're starting our people-centered approach by collecting public input on how to best leverage recent technological innovations to enhance the customer experience.

As many celebrate all things Irish tomorrow, we’ll also be celebrating our Muni drivers for Transit Driver Appreciation Day. While the official day is on Saturday, we want to recognize the men and women who serve the city’s visitors and residents as bus and rail operators for their efforts to ensure we arrive safely at our destinations.

Among the thousands of people it takes to keep Muni and the rest of our transportation system moving, Muni operators have one of the toughest jobs. For hours on end, they keep the city moving, announce stops, answer questions for customers and so much more. And they do this all while safely maneuvering an extra-large vehicle through unpredictable city traffic, some really tight spaces and difficult terrain. We want to say thanks.

The SFMTA Chinese New Year Parade contingent stepped off Saturday evening with firecrackers, pounding drums and the ring of a cable car bell. Aboard an authentic cable car, operated on a bus chassis, operators, Central Subway project team members and other staff joined the more than 100 other units of sister city agencies, community organizations, sponsors and elected officials. Celebrating the Year of the Rooster, this year's parade wound through downtown — Union Square and Chinatown.

A towering rooster proclaimed the start of the new year from the front of the Southwest Airlines float.

Last month, we unveiled the latest street design upgrade for SF — a protected intersection at 9th and Division streets. A protected intersection uses simple features like concrete islands to make moving through the intersection safer for everyone, whether they’re walking, biking or driving.

Today, we’re sharing a video with more details and a link to some interesting time lapse videos of the changes with thanks to local transportation advocate Thomas Rogers.

As we head into a week of celebrations with families and friends, we wish you and yours a festive and safe holiday.

In our 2016 annual report, Delivering Progress, we reflect on this year's accomplishments and review the challenges ahead. We invite you to learn more and to please take a moment to share your thoughts about the report in a quick survey.

Young voices raised in song greeted seniors from all over the city this morning as they gathered for the 35th annual Cable Car Senior Holiday Luncheon. This festive tradition is hosted by the operators of the Cable Car Division and the Transport Workers, Local 250-A. SFMTA staff help with coordination and, of course, serving the guests.

The seated banquet for nearly 200 also included a drawing for multiple donated prizes.

This week, our partners at the San Francisco Police Department announced their Safe Shopper campaign. We were proud to join them in sharing these important safety messages for the holiday season.

“All of us at the SFMTA want your trips about town to be easy and safe this holiday season,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin. “No matter how you get around, please remember to take your time and be aware of your surroundings.”

Thank you for your attention and patience as we restore our office computers from this weekend’s ransomware attack. We want to provide as much information as possible. To that end, below is a summary of the effects of the attack as we currently understand them.

On Friday, Nov. 25 we became aware of a potential security issue with our computer systems, including email. The malware used encrypted some systems mainly affecting office computers, as well as access to various systems. However, the SFMTA network was not breached from the outside, nor did hackers gain entry through our firewalls. Muni operations and safety were not affected. Our customer payment systems were not hacked. Also, despite media reports - no data was accessed from any of our servers.

In coordination with our partners at Cubic Transportation Systems, who operate Clipper®, we took the precaution of turning off the ticket machines and faregates in the Muni Metro subway stations, starting Friday until 9 a.m., Sunday. This action was to minimize any potential risk or inconvenience to Muni customers. The primary impact of the attack was to approximately 900 office computers. The SFMTA's payroll system remained operational, but access to it was temporarily affected. There will be no impact to employees' pay.

Upon discovering the malware, we immediately contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to identify and contain the virus. We are working closely with the FBI and DHS on this matter.

The SFMTA has never considered paying the ransom. We have an information technology team in place that can restore our systems, and that is what they are doing.

Existing backup systems allowed us to get most affected computers up and running this morning, and our information technology team anticipates having the remaining computers functional in the next day or two.